What determines how much a student can learn in a given class?

In previous columns, I have stressed how much emphasis is now being placed on the teacher, downplaying the student’s role in learning.

This faulty line of reasoning has been extended; if we could replace many “average” teachers and replace them with excellent teachers, the student learning would greatly increase.

I maintain that there are some hidden barriers to student learning that often have little to do with a particular teacher’s performance in the classroom. You hear these being discussed among teachers but seldom mentioned in articles on teaching.

 Consider a term used in medicine but just as appropriate in education; this is “prevailing practice.”

One thorny issue is student absences for tests/quizzes. Often a student has a serious reason for missing a test or a quiz. Naturally, the easiest way to handle this situation is to let the student take the same test or quiz as his/her classmate took.

Once the word gets out that student X took the test or quiz late, then student Y who may not have such a significant reason for absence may request the same treatment from the teacher.

This can lead to a number of students not taking their tests and quizzes with the rest of the class.

More significantly, there is likely to be information exchanged about the items from students who took the test/quiz on time and students taking it late.

Then it becomes impossible to determine whether the scores on the late quiz or late test reflect the actual learning by the student.

My outlook is to prepare an altogether different set of test items for a makeup test; then no student taking the test late has any advantage over the other students who took the test with the class.

Students who did poorly on the class test are invited to take the makeup test as well, with the promise of being awarded the higher test score. (So if they do worse on the makeup test, their test score is unchanged.)

 As for missed quizzes or worksheets, a number of extra items are added to my class tests that can be answered to earn extra points to make up for these absences.

Then the points earned by answering the extra items are kept separate from the test points and put in a column called makeup points for each class test.

The makeup test doesn’t have any extra items to compensate for missed quizzes or worksheets.

So if a student chronically misses quizzes, worksheets or tests, they will likely earn considerably fewer points than the students who nearly always attend class.

 Another common practice that reduces learning is the “drop test.”

Here the instructor tells the students that he/she will drop their lowest test score and not count it towards their final grade. So if a student is not feeling well or is not prepared for a test, their low test score will not count against them.

This may encourage some students to do their best on two of the class tests (if there are three) and not prepare for the third test.

An analogy to the drop test is for a hockey team who is ahead after two periods to relax during the third period and not prevent the other team from scoring goals.

 If a teacher refuses to adopt prevailing practices (such as letting students take their tests/quizzes late and the drop test), they will be likely be subjected to pressure from the students to run their course like others.

If a teacher bucks the trend, they can expect more student challenges with grades, test scoring, etc. Giving into student demands to be as lenient as the other classes reduces student learning.

 Tonight the planet Saturn is opposite to the sun and closest to Earth. Saturn is in western Virgo. The ringed planet is at the tip of a triangle in the southeastern sky with two bright stars, Spica (of Virgo) and golden Arcturus.

Saturn is now 790 million miles from the Earth, so light takes about 1 hour and 9 minutes to reach us from Saturn. A telescope magnifying 90 times will show Saturn as large as our moon appears to the unaided eye.

 On Monday, our moon will appear half full above and to the right of the star group Orion. On Wednesday and Thursday, the moon will appear near the planet Mars.

 Now featured at the Frostburg State Planetarium is “Quick Intro to the Stars” with free public showings in Tawes 302 at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. today and next Sunday. Following these programs will be a tour of our Science Discovery Center in Compton Hall.

Bob Doyle invites comments or questions; his email is rdoyle@frostburg.edu .